A Dialogue Over A Ouija Board. A Verse Dialogue. Plath, Sylvia.

First edition, sole impression, number 1 of 140 copies published by Ted and Olwyn Hughes at the Rainbow Press, of which 100 were for sale. Though unmarked as such, this copy was retained by Ted Hughes and passed by descent to his daughter, Frieda, with her signature on the title page. A Dialogue Over a Ouija Board has its origins in 1956, when Plath and Hughes began to consult a Ouija board together. The work is "purportedly a transcription of a spirit text from an imp called Pan. Pan successfully predicted the draws on a football coupon, although he also pronounced on more serious issues and passed on communications from a Prince Otto who was beholden to the Colossus, a figure who reappeared in her later poems" (ODNB). The poem's publication here precedes its inclusion in Plath's Collected Poems by two months. The type was designed and printed at the Rampant Lions Press in Cambridge. Olwyn later commented that the piece "seemed to me made for the typeface used" (quoted in Tabor). Tabor A25. Octavo. Original limp vellum by Alan Winstanley, spine lettered in gilt, brown wove endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, binder's blind stamp to rear pastedown. With the original brown paper-covered slipcase. Frontispiece illustration of Pan by Leonard Baskin. Text printed in black and blue. Faint marks to vellum, a near-fine copy.